Bridgeton pioneer., 1887-12-08
A MODERN PAGAN.
Gen. Geo. A. Sheridan's Grand
Lecture.

week ago tonight, and listened to the
eloquent Gen. Geo. A. Sheridan, in
his great lecture on 'Ingersollism.n
Few more eloquent men than General
Sheridan appear on the American
platform, and last night he treated his
audience to some of his matchless
silver tongued oratory.
In the introduction he paid a high
compliment to the gentleman whose
ideas he wished to resent. Spoke of
the wonderful and endearing person
alities of Col. Robt G. Ingersoll and
all subjects and question with extreme
fairness, save one, and that is Religion.
FL ere he drops all of that mild manner
which endears him to a friend, and
scale. His weapons in the attack on
religion being unfairness and untruth.
And because men who are his equal
on the platform and on the field of
debate pass him and his ideas without
noticing them, he poses before his
pagan friends as a matchless intellec-
tual gladiator, but how quickly would
the lances of the Blacks, the Lamberts,
and the Platts, who had challenged
him on his own field, would ring
against the shield of Ingersoll, unarm
him and stretch him cold and lifeless
on the battle field Of debate.
Ingersoll, said the speaker, poses as
q lover of truth. But for his part he
could not see why any man believing
in truth, and believing that he has
truth on his side. will refuse to discuss
the topics under consideration. Gen.
Sheridan did not want to be under
stood as saying that his pagan friend
was an intellectual coward, but he is
discreet, and it has been well said that
'discretion is the better part Of valor."
He knows that men can meet him and
beat him in debating on this question.
The speaker himself claimed to be ego
tistical enough to think he could make
it very warm for his infidel friend on
this topic.
When the Colonel starts off on one
of his attacks against his Creator and
the Bible he does not stick to facts.
He commences in the very offset by
drawing upon his very vivid imagina-
tion in saying that he desires to do
what little he can to better the world
and elevate the thoughts of mankind
to a degree that will cause people to
cease worshiping blindly; thinking
that all the good are dead; that God
is only pleased with long drawn sighs;
that all amusement is sin, etc. Analyze
that long sentence and see how much
truth there is in it. Who has been
worshipng blindly? Nobody. Who
believes that all the good are dead?
Nobody. Who believes that God only
loves long drawn sighs? Nobody. Who
ever said that all amusement was sin?
Nobody. So it can be readily seen
that the very base of his argument is
nothing, and that there is nothing
built upon it. My pagan friend, says
can to make this country truly free.
Very good. We can all say amen to
that. But is not this country truly
free? The great pagan himself said
only eleven years ago, at the opening
of the Centennial, when he made his
great speech, that every person who
lived under our glorious flag was truly
free, and this was the only free coun-
in these few years to change our status
of liberty? Nothing of marked im-
portance that the speaker had heard
of, with the exception of change in
the national administration, which has
not as yet restrained the liberty of any
except u few office holders, who can
not now get a living out of the Gov
ernment, but still have the lib
erty of getting a livelihood some other
way. Ingersoll is free. He is free to
worship anything or everything. He
has all the privileges of life that any
man has, the privilege of testifying
in some courts where a man must be-
lieve in God. 1t certainly seems
that we are free.
In discussing this question Ingersoll
will not give the Christian religion
credit for what it has done, in eleva-
ting the morals of this country. The
privileges we enjoy, came from the
men who believed in God, and not
infidels. There were no infidels among
the men that came over in the May
flower, not one. Those were the men
that planted the tree, under which
the Colonel stands, and blasphemes
his maker. There never has been, is
not, nor never will be q nation which
does not believe in something greater
above. The great pagan speaks of the
Declaration of Independence as being